Now Paramount has settled on August 10th, 2012 as the official release date for G.I. Joe 2 - almost three years exactly after Rise of Cobra was unleashed in theaters. Although there are currently no other tentpole pics scheduled for that day, both The Bourne Legacy and the Total Recall remake are tentatively slated to hit theaters a week earlier - though these could easily change sometime over the next eighteen months.

Stephen Sommers' G.I. Joe movie adaptation was a relative box office success that managed to bring in $302 million worldwide back in 2009. Considering the feature cost $175 million to produce and was given a tepid reception by most moviegoers (critics were, not surprisingly, harder on the flick) could be reason enough for Paramount to bring in some fresh talent to helm the cheaper followup.

Zombieland scribers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are scripting G.I. Joe 2, which seems destined to be a 3D pic given Chu's previous experience as a filmmaker. Channing Tatum, Lee Byun-hun, and Ray Park will reprise their roles from the first film, but otherwise the sequel will feature plenty of new faces in front of the camera as well.

G.I. Joe 2 won't be the complete franchise reboot that The Amazing Spider-Man aims to be (despite what Avi Arad says), but there's a good chance it'll stay closer to the look and style of its predecessor than other rebooting sequels like Ghost Rider 2, and to some extent The Wolverine - and yes, the latter has been described as more a standalone feature than anything else, but it'll probably feel like a reboot to some degree.

We'll see how G.I. Joe 2 turns out next year when it arrives on August 10th.